Should You Top Dress Compost Or Incorporate Compost With Soil? Which Option Is Best For Your Garden?
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- Опубликовано: 30 май 2024
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Top Dressing Compost Vs. Incorporating Compost With Soil. Which Option Is Best For Your Garden? Garden soil purchased from the store is essentially a 50/50 mix of compost and soil. It's the ideal mix of nutrients, physical structure and microbe buffer. This is why incorporating compost into the soil you are just starting out with is ideal for plant growth. After the compost is incorporated into the soil you can continue to supply nutrients and microbe food via top dressing within reason.
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Ashley is a soil scientist who has had a passion for plants since she was a small child. In the long summers as a child, she would garden alongside her grandmother and it was then that she realized her love for greenery. With years of great studying, Ashley had begun her post-secondary education at the University of Saskatchewan.
At first, her second love, animals, was the career path she chose but while doing her undergrad she realized that her education would take her elsewhere. And with that, four years later she graduated from the University of Saskatchewan with a bachelor’s degree in science and a major in Soil Science.
Some of Ashley’s interests are RUclips, in which she posts informative videos about plants and gardening. The focus of Ashley’s RUclips channel is to bring science to gardening in a way that is informative but also helpful to others learning to garden. She also talks about the importance of having your own garden and the joys of gardening indoors. Ashley continues to study plants in her free time and hopes to expand her RUclips channel as well as her reach to up-and-coming gardeners.
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This description or comments section may contain links to affiliate websites. I receive a commission for any purchases made by you on the affiliate website using such a link. This includes the gardening in Canada website. You should assume all links both on the gardening in Canada RUclips, Blog, and all other social media are affiliates and I will receive compensation. 
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I just got my gardenplot last year, I'm the 5th person to have it in as many years.
People have been adding a layer of potting soil (including leca) each year, planting, and abandoning.
It was clay sand with not an ounce of life in it.
I spent most of last year digging in grasclippings and leaf mould, and removing weeds.
Around July last year I found worms 💜
I added a layer of leafs for fall, and next week ill dig in a few logs in areas where I see some errosion happening, two sunken worm-bins (red wrigglers are native here), and adding some manure to the areas where ill plant asparagus and chili.
After this I will let the soil be and do it's thing.
The joy I felt seeing those wriggly worms and centipeeds moving back in though.
You know the scene in Castaway when he made fire?
Yeah.
I HAVE MADE WORMS
Through the growing season I top dress my beds with home grown worm castings, usually if we are going to get a heavy rain. The compost I produce I use in potting mixes and top dress my potato bed and grow bags in the fall. Tip: 25 gallon grow bags work great for outside worm bins.
When starting out 3 years ago seriously gardening I spent a ton of money incorporating high quality local compost with native soil in my beds. I also dug down a few feet in two of my main beds and filled the bottom section with different degrees of decaying and sound logs and branches, along with any other organic material I could get my hands on. The first 2 years I had tremendous settling, this year not so much.
I've gone to round cage hot composting this year. It is a lot more work than "lazy composting" but I can now focus on quality over quantity. My 3rd pile is almost done for this year, and now I have to wait for the leaves to fall before I can do one more pile. When a pile is finished, I place it in a bin and let it rest for the remainder of the year. I also will do some top dressing with leaf mold this fall.
I greatly increased my production of leaf mold over the last two years. I also found double shredding and insulating my leaf mold bin over winter worked very well. My 1st batch of leaf mold took 2 years the pile I started last fall is already practically done.
The plants I used leaf mold as seed starter did fantastic, wont be buying any more peat, ever.
Really enjoy your videos.
VERY GOOD POST! love this thank you Brian. Awesome as always.
I just top dress since I'm lazy and have found my worms don't like to be disturbed
Haha that’s fair
Heck yeah, I top dress a lot. I'm renovating some beds that have become compacted & no attention for years. They needed organic matter worked in; nothing else was working.
I don’t know how to describe my growing medium! I’ve gardened in the same backyard for 4 decades, and fundamentally the soil is glacial till with the stones removed. Clay? But over the years I’ve added all kinds of peat, manure, purchased compost, and homemade compost. I stopped tilling several years ago and only add compost and shredded leaves yearly. My own compost is made from garden scraps from a 2-person household mixed with shredded leaves. I very much doubt that I add “too much” compost. I also mulch with shredded leaves and grass clippings. Once in a while I test for pH and add lime. I think what I need is more sun, because all around me the trees have grown taller over time.
That sound great
Thanks so much for the shout out here Ashley!! So fun working on those beds with you and can't wait to see the next experiment results shortly!! 🥳🥳
Yea! I completely forgot I mentioned you!!!!!! I spaced on putting a link up.
This was such an incredibly informative video! I replaced my raised beds last year and filled them with a triple mix that ended up being super sandy and most of my plants struggled with this years epic heat/drought. When you were talking about heat & soil structure, a lightbulb went off! And totally agree with you on compost...I remember reading a study about how there was actually TOO much organic matter in many beds that were tested (those of serious gardeners having the most). That was also a lightbulb moment when I realized (contrary to popular opinion) that you can indeed add too much compost to a bed. You have done a brilliant job of explaining why this is. Thanks!
Great info! It will change my compost application methods
There may just be something to the Vermiculite. I know in "Square Foot Gardening" Vermiculite is part of the equation and people regularly report massive yields with just 6" soil depth. Great video!
Interesting!
Rice hulls are better than Vermiculite or perlite, IMO
Fantastic video ! Such an interesting & thorough look into compost incorporation. I also found your last section on the comparisons trial quite beneficial- vermiculite- heck, I forgot about its water retention capability. Thanks so much & I certainly will be enjoying your videos. 😊❤ Hello from Virginia Beach, VA
Thanks for the excellent information 😊
I love your informative videos Ashley. Last year in late Fall I grew a cover crop of alfalfa. I hacked it down to soil level put down a couple inches of compost, covered it with a heavy brown tarp to prevent any light from entering. Fast forward to a week ago and the roots have died yielding a nice soft soil. I left the soil intact mostly aside from tilling the top a dab and laid a couple more inches of compost down. I watered that in and planted a couple of tomatoes and a row of carrots on the west facing side of the raised bed. I can't wait to see the results.
Great video. Best channel Appreciate your generosity with your knowledge
I appreciate that!
Love your work 😁
Here in Germany I do vermicomposting directly in sunken beds (50 cm deep and about 70 cm above ground, horse manure). Eisenia fetida survives temperatures down to 20 degrees celsius and mixes the compost with my sandy soil. Adding vermiculite to my 90l containers seems to be a good idea but costly.
That’s so cool!
That also makes sense since they are native to Europe
Great video
Thank you so much for sharing all this valuable information for free :). I’ve learned so much from your videos that have helped my garden this year.
Just a suggestions for a future video - if there is more interest - I’m in the process of hardening off a few pepper, tomato, cucumber and zucchini plants I will be planting into fabric pots with the hopes of moving them into a greenhouse when the temperature falls below 10 degrees so maybe a video on how to extended the season using a greenhouse with warm weather crops and maybe later cold weather crops for the greenhouse?
Just a suggestion if there is interest
are you moving containers?
@@GardeningInCanada I’m planting them into fabric pots and putting them in my garden for now and then moving the pots into the greenhouse when it drops below 10 degrees.
I was hoping you could possibly do a video with tips on temperature in the greenhouse, hand pollinating, basically how to extend the season using a greenhouse. I have a basic idea but a greenhouse is new to me
I like to mix amendments into my clay soil. Just helps with everything especially the perlite and coco peat
Oh yea! Definitely would
Great show. Love the detailed and scientific information. Thank you so much. I compost table scraps mixed with leaves and a small amount of natural clay-based soil. First, I heat it in black bins (garbage cans with lots of holes drilled in for air placed in direct Southern California sun. Before it heats up I see fat yellow grubs. After all is nicely decomposed, I stop watering it until I see ants and no grubs. Then I move it into shade, top it with wet rags for air conditioning by evaporation during hot days and add earthworms. When earthworms are thriving, I deem it ready for a one-inch topping on veggies. QUESTION ONE: Are live worms a good test for quality soil? QUESTION TWO: My lemon trees are suffering leaf curl. Could my compost be bad?
2:43 Everything before this is a COMMERCIAL.
This and your cucumber beetle have me wondering . Last fall after removing dead plant matter I put alfalfa pellets on the soil and covered with a couple of inches of shredded leaves . The soil looked great this spring BUT did I create a problem with overwintering cucumber beetles? I actually grew the cucumbers in new beds( and squash in new grow bags) but they found my cucumbers and squash anyway. Could you do a video on how to prepare beds for winter and not create a cozy winter haven for bad bugs?
Yea absolutely!
How do you tell if you have too much compost
For the volatizing and the leaching thing, I was reading about biofilters, so could this be used in a topdressing situation, for both volatizing and leaching/runoff? I was just reading that it is actually already being used for runoff in situations like this (or around a compost pile, around a farm plot/field, or for greywater systems). And it's being used to filter volatizing air chemicals, but usually in a much smaller space (e.g. directly in or in-front-of a vent of a pig barn filled with fresh manure, topping a compost pile, etc), but I've not seen or read about it being used for a no-till style approach.
So, for the run-off situation, they dig a trench (where the water is running off) and fill it with woodchips. So, I think this could be applied here, you would just need enough woodchips, manual labour, and an accurate understanding of where your run-off is/how to funnel it to your biofilter trench.
For the gaseous stuff, you'd have to layer a carbonaceous material on top of the compost in a thick enough layer to do a decent job capturing the emissions. I'm not sure about the layer of woodchips they use on compost piles yet (I don't remember reading the exact amount), but that's also a more concentrated amount.
I wonder how well a few inches of straw and/or fall leaves on top of the compost would do. Woodchips would be problematic for obvious reasons if you've ever tried to grow annual vegetables year after year in woodchip mulched beds. The other issue is that if you're first piling on compost and then a carbonaceous material, that's alot of material you have to source and it would make the beds quite high potentially.
I’ve heard you need to use potting soil in raised beds because it’s like a big container. The peat moss holds water better, the pearlite adds aeration and the compost is the food. Is there some good advice there?
Holy sponsor spots batman
Hahah three years in RUclips and we are getting sponsors 😂
So I also watch Jim Putman and he deals a lot with improving clay soil which he has and does things that work for him. What he usually uses is pine bark soil conditioner but I cannot find this around me at all. What is the closest thing, or what type of pine bark or mulch should I be looking for in a product if I want it to break down and improve my soil? I found mulch and nuggets, but I’m assuming the nuggets are way too big to break down. I’m looking for something I can add to my soil to break it down to make it more manageable and easy to plant things in, and I’m confused on whether I should add compost and mulch or just one of either.
I have a storage bin with soil in it. I.didnt realize it had soil until I started throwing compost material in there.. is this okay?
I add a layer of my compost to my beds in the fall and till them in come spring, I really like growing in my native soil! I hear a lot from the No diggers about their soil having more beneficial fungal qualities than my tilled soil, I would love to hear what you have to say about that! I would of though that annual vegetables would have their fungal relationships with annual fungus regenerating from spores?
well the hyphae is busted when we till. that maybe what they are talking about
My preference will always be soil based. As I get on in years I am finding that I have to spend a good 20-30 minutes to warm up and get those "kinks out" prior to gardening. Why I am using more containers is simply because there are too many rabbits around mowing everything down.
The majority of my compost is used as a top dressing because of my perennial plots. Of course I recycle my container's potting mix and amend it with compost. It has been so long since I have purchased potting mix I may be over doing it a bit now when refreshing with compost.
When digging in the compost we have to be a little "sciencey" with our application. We may find that a larger amount is required, what is it called, volume per volume percentage? Meaning we take 1/2 a yard of clay soil and we want to amend it with 1/2 a yard of cured compost. Hoping that we would have 1 yard of materials. Well you may need almost 3/4 of a yard of compost to make that one yard. I guess what I am saying is you need lots of compost.
There was one thing in particular that I learned from Dr Elaine Ingham. That once the compost has aged and cured the best thing to do was to grow plants with it. Don't just spread it out or dig it in and leave it. I am sure there are a few other things she has mentioned before that I have forgotten. I haven't viewed much of her content as I believe her agenda has skewed off course somewhat.
You do need a lot of compost 😂. Some years I use more then others I find depending on the temps/moisture of the previous years.
It makes sense to me that you'd need 3/4 yard of compost and 1/2 yard of soil to make 1 yard of mix. Compost, at least the significantly leaf based compost I make, is going to be rather light and fluffy and filled with air, so the clay (or in my case sand) soil ends up kind of just filling those air pockets instead of adding onto it.
Hi...looking for "Mine and Soil"s YT video, mentioned at 10:38 min. I've looked in your Description but maybe not recognizing it. Thanks.
My wife and I just started gardening last year, taking out the sod to plant a garden. We had fairly good results, but I would like to know if soil composting, whereby I till kitchen scraps, leaves, and grass into a pile of soil, will help amend relatively crappy soil?
Now I bury the kitchen scraps, covering it with a fair amount of soil, to leave it there for the summer. I dry out my grass clippings, spreading across the top of the soil pile. And with the leaves, I've covered our entire garden with them, from last fall, and plan to till them into the soil (going over them several times), before we plant.
In addition, if I add things like coffee grounds and pulverized egg shells to kitchen scraps, will they have a detrimental affect on the soil I am amending? Oh...and we also till old annual potted plants / soil, into the soil pile and garden...just wondering if this is bad or not?
I hope this isn't too much to ask? Being in Saskatoon, I really appreciate the work you're doing, sharing your knowledge with us...thank you so much Ashley.
it unfortunately would lock up to much nitrogen so composting is best
How long does it take for compost to breakdown to become soil?
Is our free compost here in saskatoon safe to used? Thanks
I am in sothern Michigan, growing potatoes, carrots, and tomatoes in containers on my back deck, as that is what I can keep deer and rabbit free. When fertilizers are refereed to as being "slow release", how slow are we talking about? I ask this because after my harvest, I plan to refurbish the used soil with peat moss, compost, alfalfa pellets, and some slow release fertilizer, and let this percolate over the winter to be ready for next spring. My thinking is that the this will make at least some of the slow release nutrients more available initially to new plants.
Thank you for your videos. It is great to have access to science based information. So much of what is available on RUclips is more alchemy based than science based. Not that I am totally knowing this, as all the fiddling and fussing with plants and dirt is what I I am enjoying with my pickle bucket 'tater patch, it is just good to know that adding a shovel full of epsom salts to everything would not be a good idea.
Granular and osmocote type slow release will let a portion become water soluble throughout its stated 2-6 month lifespan. Soil can only hold so much and the rest is leeched. Organic matter and clay can hold some of the charged ions sans water, but that should be considered a limited buffer during the ebb/flow of water during the season. TLDR don't apply slow release early as you're wasting it.
I like to use Milorganite and only Milo is that bad??? You rock BTW thanks for sharing your skills with us.
What's your thoughts on mushroom compost? Could it be used like any other compost mixed or top dressed into existing soil? I read that there's high salt content... so use smaller amount?
They say it’s higher because it’s often manure based substrate. I would not stress that unless if you are seeing salt build up.
I used some this year which appeared to be manure based. I was mixing it approximately 1 part mushroom compost, 2 parts home-made compost, 2 parts native soil when preparing my planting holes and it seems to be working well.
Hello, personally I like to use the way of "Charles Dowding" (no dig), I add wood chips afterwards.
Yea that’s a great way to have an easy medium to work with.
what wood chips are best, i have access to pine.
Plz give the name of the recommended YT video at the ending of this episode that you suggested we check out. I couldn't make out the name and would like to go to it. Tks!!!
One that appeared in the upper right hand box was accessed by touching that part of your screen, it was Mycorrhizae I think.
Sorry that in mind and soil ruclips.net/video/lyaVp_1SPaU/видео.html
The compost video begins at 2:41.
I admire your dedication for soil health! Wish you could see where I live between mountains and on a freshwater lake complete with boreal forest. Clay in some parts and earth mixed on top in other places in my yard. No phone access as we are in unorganized territory and no road access. Please tell me what I should grow where! It’s a matter of survival for my family. What do you need me to send as I have emergency satellite service internet and only have messenger Facebook for outside communication.
You might want to incorporate compost with the soil.
I forgot I was watching this, back to it
I have a garden bed 6x3 which I grew 1 tomato plant and harvested 150 tomatoes, I composted what was left of the tomato plant. What about the 150 tomatoes that I harvested, how do I replace the nutrients from those tomatoes?
You would use the additional compost made from the lawn, leaves and food scapes etc.
@@GardeningInCanada thank you for your response.
Pee on your compost pile. :P
You should totally do a skill share course!
I applied but wont find out until october 😰
@@GardeningInCanada best of luck!!!
@@GardeningInCanada it's October....
Don’t you in Canada make your own compost? I’ve watched many of your very interesting videos but what comes nearly always is that you never talk about compost as in make-your-own-compost. We in Finland (North Europe) make our own compost in nearly every house that gardens. In fact it is the law to make your own compost or then pay for the collecting of the kitchen waste. The compost is therefor very varied but it is still works but I don’t think it possible to grow only in compost, would never have crossed my mind to try.
I used to live in Saskatchewan and there are barely any trees there. Majority wheat land so I would never be able to collect enough material to make compost. Nova Scotia, the entire province would be covered with trees if not cleared but underneath the topsoil is rocks.
A little confused when you suggest using a mix of compost and soil in raised beds because we will not have to top it off or refill it overtime.. won't you have to top it off with more compost because the organic matter will decompose thus losing volume? I feel like I'm missing something
You’re exactly right, anyone who does organic gardening in pots knows that every year the soil level drops. It’s honestly bad advice😂 without topping up the soil with compost or amendments it will become barren over time.
If you are adding 5 to 6 inches of compost and incorporating it 10 to 12 inches deep...how long should you wait before transplanting new seedlings? Should you not wait for the soil biome to settle and the nitrogen sequestration to settle out?
Properly broken down compost can be planted right into. You need to check if it’s hot
Since I do mainly container gardening, its incorporation. I dump the sip containers, clean them, amend the soil and refill. The 4 raised beds I have are mostly top dress with incorporated soil mix from the first dozen or so sip containers because I need empty containers to start the cycle. Mobility is a concern, I have real problems bending down. I am contemplating how to do a partial dump of five gallon bucket sips and avoid half the washing and soil mixing. The problem is during the winter the cups (cheap dollar store 3'' plastic pots) in the bottom of the top bucket of the sips freezes and expands, sometimes cracking the bottom bucket so it no longer holds water. I have just been removing the cups (yanking them out of the bottom before storing them for winter) because I could replace them when dumped. But if I dont completely dump I cant easily replace them.
Yea container gardening you definitely need to incorporate. The cracking of the containers happens with mine to, I wonder if it’s the plastic type. Some seems to stand up longer then others.,
Cat litter buckets with holes drilled in the bottoms make durable planters. Not unsightly in white either.
Jeremy, from Build a Soil, uses SIPs (EarthBoxes) for multiple runs/grows (cannabis) without dumping; I do the same with cannabis and vegetables. The major differences include watering, which you do only when the SIP reservoir is dry versus topping it off since the medium resembles compost more so than soil . Additionally, we use red wigglers and top dressings.
Overwintering is a simple process of letting the SIP reservoir dry out; yes the worms die/freeze, but they become food for the microbes once you restart the process in the spring.
Thought to mention this since you wrote about mobility; I'm in the same boat. Moving hurts, lifting hurts more.
@@GardeningInCanada I think it has to do with the depth of the reservoir. I have some tidy cats sips, and some made from other kinds of buckets that dont crack. But the round ones from the big box crack in the bottom a lot of the time. It hasnt been a big issue up till now. I would take the ones with cracked bottoms and cut the holes in them to make top buckets, then by two new ones and make them bottom buckets. But I have filled most of my garden space so I really dont need 4-6 new planters.
@@MushroomMagpie I only drill holes in the small ones to turn them into flower planters to attract pollinators. I also sand the outside to scuff them up and spray paint them so they are protected from the uv rays.
Based upon the fact that I have to work with nasty red clay soil where I'm at, I'm pretty sure I'll have to incorporate. Also gonna have to look into using vermiculite.
Oh yes! Red clay absolutely you need to incorporate
@@GardeningInCanada I've read papers from professors (University of Washington ?) arguing that when you incorporate organic material to soils, such as clay, the organic material can cause the soil to subside as it decomposes leaving massive air pockets in the soil leading to excessive soil erosion. I always have a incredibly hard time finding the material because of the mass amount of horticulture misinformation online, but from my experience its much easier breaking up clay soil with a solid covering of plants and mulch.
@@mushroomjesus2068 this would happen if we were incorporating an excess or large sticks etc. But amending with a few inches won’t cause erosion. The concern would be if there was no organics, the soil was compacted and the area was unable to grow anything.
So the surface in a forest is soiless since it’s just leaves that have been decomposing for years. ?
No, this advice is full of holes😂
💚💚
I love your work and you make perfect sense. Here's the problem. Many people can't afford to purchase all this compost and don't have room or materials to make their own. So, what can these people do?
Yea great point. I would consider grass cycling and leaf cycling in the case. You would essentially use those products as a mulch and then add to it over time. The goal would be mimicking a forest floor type setup.
Compost in place. Dig a hole in the garden bed and fill with food scraps. It will feed the worms and slowly break down.
Can you add the link to the comparison bed RUclips- it was not clear in the audio- thanks
Mind and soil.
Ok...is there such a thing as silly soil and is it hydrophobic?
Thumbs up
❤️❤️
Unless you’re growing giant Sudan Grass, you will never get even close to 1” of compost from one season of tomatoes, carrots etc.. lucky to get 1/8”.
I agree. You really don’t need to add much or anything when it comes to compost or fertilizer
I collect turkey tail and artist konk mushrooms and have some logs at home growing them. Crushing them and sun drying provides a free vermiculite alternative.
That sounds very interesting - does it work for any mushroom? I have lots of 'srooms, but don't know the different types.
For those of us that didn’t come here for advertising please do some editing
Would probably have been good but the long commercial made me leave.
You are extremely beautiful!
Blah blah blah I could not get through the video.
For God so loved the world, That He have His only begotten son, so that whosoever believes in Him would be saved. (John 3:16, Bible). We have all broken God’s moral law and have gotten the death penalty. However, Jesus lived a perfect life in order to take our place and endure the wrath of God. He did this because He loves us so much! Repent from sin and trust in what Jesus did for you so your sins can be forgiven and forgotten.
She’s trying to help you grow Gods gift brother. Death and fear can get out of here.